


Gimme Shelter

by assassin_nariel



Category: Justified
Genre: Ambiguously Gay Tim, Army Rangers, ESL, Excessive Drinking, Explicit Language, Gen, Hungover driving, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Male Friendship, Offensive humour, Recreational Drug Use, Slash in the background, Unrealistic depiction of interactions between officers and enlisted men (possibly)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 06:46:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/assassin_nariel/pseuds/assassin_nariel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>War, children, it’s just a shot away. //<br/>Tim flies out to New York City to hang out with his Ranger buddies. He’s just in it for the company and the booze, not unwelcome introspection and other people’s secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gimme Shelter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [linndechir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/linndechir/gifts).



> Disclaimer: Al & Eddie developed with Linndechir.  
> This is superlate and I am very very sorry.

* * *

 

9/22/12

18:32

_Landed. Dude I should fly more stewardesses r hot._

-Tim Gutterson

 

9/22/12

18:34

_Mile high club only works in porn bro. Waiting outside._

-Al Bresh

 

9/22/12

18:40

_4u maybe loser. Ur wife still fat? Lol_

-Tim Gutterson

 

9/22/12

18:45

_Her boobs r bigger now :DDD how’s ur cowgirl_

-Al Bresh

 

9/22/12

18:48

_2 words. goodbye bj._

-Tim Gutterson

 

LaGuardia airport, New York City

 

“You are such an asshole, Gutterson!” Al bellowed, as soon as Tim got within sight. A few mothers covered their children’s ears. The sniper – not really ex-sniper, word had it he shot more people for the Marshals than for the Rangers – waved at him exuberantly, and elbowed his way through the masses to be greeted with the usual bear hug. Al took special care to smother the younger man’s face in his armpit. It was all part of the tradition.

“Howdy, Sarge.”

“Howdy, eh?” Al spit noisily, and Tim laughed at the way some people pointedly edged away. “Fucking howdying me, look at him gone native.” He held Tim at arm’s length, shaking him like a puppy before letting him go. Tim followed him through the crowds faithfully, a sleek hunting dog to Al’s lumbering bear, way it always was. They traded insults and Army gossip with equal relish. What they didn’t talk about was the past, the worst parts of Afghanistan. Oh, they touched on some things – did Mickey’s finger grow back yet? – but it hardly qualified as caring and sharing. Easier to tease each other, about Tim’s allegedly developing bald spot and Al’s allegedly third chin. Calling Tim a faithless runaway meant congratulations for having a job that only allowed him to get away for two days. It wasn’t until they got into the rental that Al paused, then decided against dropping whatever news was burdening him, and drove.

He was retiring, Tim thought. Had to be. He did a quick count in his head. Yes, it fit. Twenty years. Al was five years older than him, an indestructible constant by Tim’s side in Afghanistan, transferred to replace what’s-his-name at the last minute before they deployed. Despite, or perhaps because of being a dark horse, he filled his position as instantly and smoothly like a well-oiled magazine slotting into a rifle.

Tim had been cultivating the ‘silent aloof sniper’ image at the time, so he left it to the others to try their sass on the new Sergeant and get burned. Al had an admirable sadistic streak, clearly having been born to be a drill sergeant, but instead he had veered off the beaten bath destiny had been nudging him towards and carried his imposing gut proudly through Ranger School and into the band of misfits that was Tim’s unit. Whereas the others, however, were content to let Tim withdraw into his mysterious sniper thing when they returned stateside, Al refused to listen to any protests and every time he called Tim and yelled at him for a while, whether he wanted to or not, Tim always found himself driving towards Georgia and Al’s overbearing hospitality. Even if it was only to serve as a buffer in the frequent and blazing rows between Al and his wife, he still felt appreciated in a way that... mattered. Like he was the one that needed Al more than Al needed him. Tim, being one of the few consistently single and stable ones, had become the go-to guy ever since settling down in Kentucky. Every few months, one of his buddies would show up at his door and stay a while, get their shit together (sometimes not). But Al was the one Tim could go to to get his shit together. And though he never showed up unless Al called and yelled at him for a while, knowing that he could if he had to meant a lot.

Al was also the one who did all of Tim’s tattoos, except for one, his first. Tim had been twenty at the time, and at that age, when you fall in love and it ends badly, you end up doing dramatic stupid-ass shit, like getting the first letter of his name tattooed on your foot. Removing it would not have removed the memory, so Tim kept it. The letter was faded, almost forgotten now.

Tim kept looking out of the window as they updated each other on their friends’ recent divorces, breakups and deployments. New York loomed around them, dizzyingly high and infinite.

“Where are we even going, man?”

“The right way. Phone tells me where to go. Found my way to pick up your ass, didn’t I?”

“Says we missed a turn.”

“Scenic route.”

“Bullshit.”

Suddenly it seemed the houses were falling away, and Tim stared. He knew this view from at least a dozen movies, and it felt unreal. The sky was lurid, pink and red, and rays of the dying sun zigzagged between the grey peaks of the Manhattan skyline, like an abstract painting of a mountain range, and they were driving towards it, on...

“The Brooklyn Bridge.”

“Now you tell Eddie we done no detours,” Al yelled, turning up Journey on the radio. “He already gave me all the tourist shit I care to hear in my life.”

Tim nodded, and rolled down the window. He fished Al’s sunglasses from the dashboard and put them on, resting his elbow on the window frame.

“Feeling cool?”

Tim nodded, grinned.

“Dork.”

“You’ll get them back.” And hell if Tim knew what made him speak up now, but he wasn’t about to have a Conversation in the middle of twenty drunk Rangers squeezed into Eddie’s two-bedroom. “You’re retiring,” he said, simply, interrupting a long but comfortable silence. “That’s okay, you know? And if she can’t stand you around full-time, fuck her. Marry a stripper, like Joey. I mean, his wife is a stripper. I don’t know. Maybe he’s doing it too, now...” That coaxed out a reluctant laugh. “Or, open up a bar. Whatever makes you happy, man. Take the tattoo gig full time....”

Al didn’t say anything for a while, but as they were driving off the bridge, he took his sunglasses back.

“Nobody gets tattooed in Georgia, just soldiers. All doing the same boring shit.”

“Roofie them, then charge them? You know, like your momma does....”

“You think that was real funny, don’t you?”

“Nah. What’s real funny is, year back or so, fella at work saw a man’s arm get chopped off.”

“The hell?”

“Happens. Anyways, I said, you sure dis-armed him.”

Al grunted appreciatively, wiped off a symbolic, paternal tear from his eye. “Son... I am so proud of you.”

Tim’s stories of the Marshals’ exploits lasted them well until they found Eddie’s flat, the twenty blocks they circled to park the car, on the walk back, and up the rickety fire escape trembling slightly with the bass thumping away from above. One landing left, Al held him back.

“Look,” he said, unaccustomedly uncomfortable. “I’m not supposed to give you a heads-up, but, seeing as... I would have liked one, so... just don’t go punching anybody, just go with it okay?”

“What now.”

“Oh, hell. It’s just, Eddie. Eddie’s being....well. Eddie.”

“He finally shot a pregnant woman?”

“Would be good for him if he did, but... no. No, we’d have heard. But, uh.... oh, hell, just go with it. They’re trying to promote him again, so he’s being a bit... well...”

“... Eddie?”

“Yeah. That about sums it up right.”

The First Sergeant and the C. O. naturally fall into parental roles, especially in a tightly-knit unit like theirs was. Sometimes, it’s more of a good cop/bad cop arrangement. But with them, it was more like this: if Al was the loud boisterous father flipping burgers and bossing the boys around, Captain Edward Blake was... the unhinged cougar mom with a meth problem, although this description doesn’t quite do him justice.

Eddie earned the nickname “the Comedian” while still a Lieutenant in Special Forces. He happened to share both first and last name with a comic book character, and his own C. O. had been a glowing Alan Moore aficionado; long story short, the name stuck, as well as the running joke turned whispered rumour of his propensity to shooting innocent pregnant women. As far as anybody knew, this had yet to happen. But Eddie was far less trouble in the theater than on base. A pampered progeny of Manhattan’s upper crust, he had been to law school, and knew his way around every single Army directive better than any bureaucrat. For all his flaunted disregard of rules, he knew precisely how much he could get away with. When a promotion threatened to take him out of the field, he slapped a General in the middle of a busy mess hall, and was demoted back to Captain and back to his Rangers. The General may have been aware of Eddie’s intentions and willing to grant his wish – but the legend of Eddie Blake grew, nonetheless. Eddie Blake had his men singing YMCA while doing their runs. When two PFCs got into a fight, Eddie Blake had them sit out in the yard holding hands for a day. He had a most impressive array of gay jokes for every opportunity and situation, to the point of bordering on sexual harassment, just this side of permissible. He did not draw a line at religion nor race, and probably wouldn’t have even if the black soldiers under his command hadn’t done their best to enable him by playing along. They called it the race chicken game, and around the time Tim left, Captain Blake held a respectable lead on points. He also never shied from matching his men in every gruelling training exercise he threw at them. If they had to run fifteen miles in full gear, Eddie Blake would be running ahead, not rolling along in a Jeep sipping on a soda. There was a method to his madness, and when situation required it, he would abandon his informal ways between two breaths, focus, and turn terrifyingly competent. That was what mattered most.

The party was in full swing when they arrived; Tim stepped into a puddle of whiskey as soon as he came through the door. As overwhelming as it was to be enveloped by a crowd, it was a perfect welcome. Here, he belonged; not the new guy in the office, only taken out of paperwork hell to shoot somebody every once in a while, but Tim, brother, friend, and safe haven in troubled times. Every time Tim joined these get-togethers, he would notice how there would be less and less people he knew from his Afghanistan tours. They got out, or at least, remained based stateside. Now that Al was quitting... Tim did a quick tally in his head, then did it again, to be sure, and still came up with just one man from his unit still set to return to the sandbox – their commanding officer. He was about to elbow Al and give him a little hell (“The brass outlasting all of us, pathetic...”) but the words stuck in his throat. He barely registered the flash as someone, presumably Al, the scheming asshole, took a picture to preserve his expression for posterity.

The reason for this was, unsurprisingly, Eddie Blake. He’d seen Eddie in offensively pink shirts before, a bit of an eyesore, but hardly a shocker. No, the shocker was the man sitting half on his lap, a familiar arm thrown around Eddie’s shoulders, and laughing at something Tim hadn’t heard; laughing together with the soldiers around them, and it seemed nobody but him was finding it strange. It was like landing in a parallel dimension.

“No, no, he didn’t get it, so again, for you peasants: I basically called him a pussy to his face, and he was like, carry on, Captain...”

Tim was still staring even after they noticed him, prompting another bout of laughter, this time directed at him.

“Gutter-son!” Eddie toasted him blithely with the bottle of...champagne? How gay was he trying to look? It was a prank; had to be a prank. “Glad you made it.”

Tim, still feeling disconnected from reality, forced himself to close his mouth. “Sir.” Well, that came out nice and smooth. Good. He back-pedaled to the kitchen, raucous laughter in tow, following Eddie’s orders to help himself to beer, pizza, but not his boyfriend, haha. Tim stopped in a quieter corner – quieter meaning behind younger Rangers who didn’t know him and thus paid little attention to him beyond a perfunctory Hoo-ah – and just stayed there, trying to collect himself. It was like every nightmare he has ever had gone absurd, just starring Eddie instead of him, sitting there cozy with this obviously camp guy, a young professorial type, sticking out like a sore thumb among the Rangers paying him about as much attention as any soldier’s wife or girlfriend.

It hurt in ways Tim couldn’t begin to understand, nor had he any wish to. If there was one thing he was better at than sharpshooting, it was passing for straight. Seeing Eddie constantly fag it out was funny enough until he seriously considered the possibility that his flamboyant office might actually be gay, a thought that has never occurred to him until this day. Objectively, those balls of steel had to be admired, but all Tim could feel was irrational fury, and it took him a few deep breath before he could track down its cause: Eddie was making it look so goddamn easy. Like he just let the guys into his home, said “Hi, meet my boyfriend, he may not have your wife’s tits, Al, but you know I am an ass man...” and that was all there was to it. Tim blinked. He was actually hearing that.

He couldn’t imagine daring something like this, regardless that he had long left the Army, regardless that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was, at least legally, a thing of the past. Hell, he couldn’t imagine having a boyfriend and ... cuddling in front of people. The very idea almost made him break out in cold sweat, ridiculous as it was. There had been... men he saw twice, sure, that summer when he was twenty, of course; more recently, a married guy who’d drive a hundred miles every other week to see Tim and fuck and watch football and complain about his wife, until Tim found himself waiting for him and that he didn’t want to have to wait for somebody who would not stay. A fortnightly affair hardly qualified as a 'boyfriend', and few words made Tim cringe like this one did.

And then there was Raylan Givens. Raylan most certainly did not fit that word. It was just incredibly convenient to mess around after a day at work than to go crawl through websites and cruising spots, and well, if you end up sleeping with your hot presumed-straight colleague who looked like he stepped out of vintage cowboy porn, who in his own words was too old to be hung up about who gets the top bunk long as both have their fun... you don’t complain, that’s what. There was really, really nothing to complain about. A few feet of space on his extra-large king bed was a fair trade-off for spectacular morning sex, Tim felt. And then the bar Raylan lived above got blown up, and he was already spending every other night at Tim’s place, so he stayed over, temporarily. What with one thing and another, he hadn’t found a new place just yet, and Tim wasn’t so bothered by his presence as to force him to, or even to remind him. It was September, Tim thought, suddenly, and the explosion at Lindsay’s bar had happened in February... time sure passed quickly. Or Raylan was easier to be around than he would have suspected initially. Or both. Still. Liberal faggy Californian teenagers were boyfriends. Not him and Raylan.

Mostly, it just amused him to tell Al tall tales about a long-legged naughty cowgirl he met at work who kept her hat on riding him – and except for the girl parts, it was actually true. That train of thought never failed to cheer him up. So he shook off the shock, and resolutely avoided Eddie, letting Mark and some of the younger guys drag him out to the balcony to smoke weed. None of them mentioned the big gay elephant in the room, and he wasn’t about to, so he could almost pretend everything was as usual. One by one, they wandered back inside, and Tim let his legs hang off the balcony and dozed in the warm autumn night, half-finished beer loose in his hand. Al woke him, checking up on him, and stayed a while, smoking in silence, his solid presence as grounding as it had been in the mountains beyond the Pakistan border.

“Man, we coulda used some of that weed down there...” Tim giggled, louder than intended. Al patted his head fondly and told him to sleep it off. Tim mumbled he was fine, and leaned back into his corner, hidden behind a giant flowerpot. What kind of man kept a flowerpot big enough to hide a sniper, anyway. Flowers. Fucking gay.

“Don’t go shooting anybody, you hear?”

“Mmmf.”

“Fucking Eddie.” Al shook his head, looking down to the crowds in the street. He spit, with some relish. “He really ain’t running out of jokes.”

“Hella joke.”

“C’mon, man, you don’t think he’s really doing the guy? ‘s probably some kinda weirdo gay New York cousin and he’s fucking with us, man, he’s gotta be.”

Eddie’s mad, said Al, mad as a hatter, but sure as hell not gay. He’ll probably try and become a woman when he leaves the Army, just for kicks, but gay? No fag passes Ranger school.

“You did,” Tim slurred, and Al gave him a brotherly kick.

“Get some sleep, pothead. Hey. Tim.”

Tim blinked at him, tiredly. He had been awake since five in the morning. Not Raylan’s fault, for once; sometimes he just couldn’t sleep.

“How often do they test your piss at work, man? Sure that’s ok?”

“Last week,” Tim said, and felt something constrict in him. Damn Al for being an... an asshole. Asshole meaning, this time, caring. Tim used that word in very varied ways. “I know what I’m doing, man. I know, you hear that from others, but I’m good. Just chilling, man. I’m doing real good.”

“Cowgirl’s a keeper, huh.”

“Oh, fuck off. Not everyone lives with a ball and chain, man. We’re casual. ‘S good like that.”

“Casual until she wants to have a baby.” Al let out a gloomy sigh. “Mark my words. No woman really wants casual.”

Tim grinned dirtily. “That’s why she’s somethin’ real special.”

Al rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, heard it all. And nothing jiggly that shouldn’t be jiggly. I know. You asshole.” He flipped Tim a friendly finger on his way out.

Tim could have been content to stay there forever, unseen and floating on his high while familiar voices were drifting out of the door, laughter and bad music as the mixtapes ran out and somebody, possibly – probably – Eddie, introduced karaoke instead. Tim was tempted to join them, but he was just too comfortable to move, and he could hear them just fine from where he was. He was doing a pretty good job at guessing the singers, still able to pick out his friends’ voices from the strangers’ even baked, when steps vibrated across the wooden boards of the balcony, and Eddie’s voice broke through the safe haze wrapped around him.

“...so, baby, what’s wrong?”

That was less remarkable in and of itself, Eddie called a lot of people that, including Tim himself on occasion, and the other voice being unknown may not have been particularly remarkable either if...

“Care to explain to me why your...men think me being here is a big, elaborate joke?”

If not for that. They clearly hadn’t seen him; Al had turned the small light off when he left, and behind the fat flowerpot and dressed dark, Tim was virtually invisible. And there was no way he could make his presence known now without making it worse, maybe he was also morbidly curious – and so, he didn’t move.

“Now, baby, why would you think that?”

Tim knew that honeyed voice of Eddie’s alright. He had used that kind of voice negotiating an airstrike, coaxing artillery out of some stuck-up Major who was going on about saving resources while they had hijacked tanks rolling towards them.

“That’s what I heard! That’s why they’re so accepting, the only reason! How do you think that makes me feel, I’m sitting here like an idiot while they’re laughing at me... You know, that, I can handle. What I can’t handle is you lying to me, Eddie, you lied to me. You said you told them.”

“I did. Sweetheart, calm down – I did. It’s not my fault they’re all in denial...”

“And you’re just fine with that, aren’t you?”

“I told them the truth, what else do you expect me to...”

“Not hide it from me?”

“Baby, I had no idea...”

“Cut the crap, Eddie. That’s bullshit, and you know it.”

“Look, I did what you wanted...”

“No, no, no. You will not put this on me. I never asked for this. I know where you’re coming from. I never asked to meet your friends, or your family...”

“Hell, I don’t wanna meet my family...”

“Very funny. Is that why they call you Comedian?”

“It’s from a comic book, actually...”

Tim, shrinking a little deeper into his dark corner, awarded Eddie major points for not saying _for shooting a woman, actually_. That would not have gone over well.

“Tell somebody who gives a shit, Eddie.”

“Thought you’re here because you give a shit.”

“You, clearly, do not. You know, I was not exactly okay with meeting your Army friends either. But you said it was important to you, you insisted. Just to play a joke on them? On me?”

“You weren’t supposed to know.”

That had been almost too quiet for Tim to make out. He shifted a little, the creak in the floorboards lost in the sound of a resounding slap and the door to the balcony slamming shut. Eddie remained where he was; Tim could see him through the leaves of the fancy monstrosity in the flowerpot, face ghostly pale in the blue flashes of a passing ambulance below. Tim held his breath, even as he knew he had been spotted.

“Well, well.” Eddie laughed, a little artificially. “This is awkward. Gutterson?”

Tim swallowed, raise a hand, painfully aware that it looked like the weird plant was waving. “....Howdy, sir?”

An oppressive silence, followed, which Tim wasn’t about to break. He looked around, still sitting. His eyes fell on a half-empty pack of Marlboro’s somebody forgot. He got up and handed it to Eddie like a peace offering, his back cracking as he rolled his shoulders a little, stretching. Eddie nodded, lit a cigarette, held out the lighter to Tim, looking ill at ease. Tim tried to reign in his urge to panic, an instinctive response shaped by years of training and combat: Eddie Blake looking serious meant the end was nigh. So he took a cigarette as well, not because he liked smoking much, but because it felt appropriate.

“So, soldier, what do you think of that?”

Hearing that the usual cheer and levity in Blake’s voice was forced felt more wrong than seeing a guy in his lap, and that was saying something.

“Well, sir...” Tim paused, thinking feverishly. “If I may be quite frank.”

“By all means.”

“Sir, you’re a bit of an asshole.”

Eddie nodded, thoughtfully. “What kind?”

“Well...” Tim swallowed. “That fa... uhm, the guy. The gay one. Thought you liked him. And you were just pretending, and, well, it was a cool stunt ‘n all that. Gave me a stroke, or half of one. And, well, it’s just a fag anyway, that’s why you’re only a bit of an asshole. No offence, sir.”

“None taken.”

Tim looked away, uncomfortably. It was alright to be uncomfortable, in a situation like this. Nothing strange about it.

“So... you don’t think I’m gay.”

“Crossed my mind for a sec there, sir.”

“That was kind of the point.”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, Tim tried to imagine his unit, Eddie, at his house in Lexington. Just like here, talking loudly, watching TV, sitting on the floor because Raylan was sprawled all over the goddamn couch, feet in Tim’s lap. The mere attempt made his head hurt, it was just...not compatible. Separately, the two images were just fine; he liked having his friends over, and he liked watching Raylan fall asleep within arm’s reach, but together...that just wasn’t how the world worked. Some things are only good apart. Like chilli and guacamole. You just don’t put it all on one taco. At least Tim didn’t. Some people did. Sickos.

“So, uh.” Eddie laughed again, still unnaturally tense, pocketed the cellphone he had checked surreptitiously. “Nice weather we’re having.”

“No chance of sandstorms, sir.” Tim took a belated drag on his cigarette, ash crumbling on his sleeve. He couldn’t bring himself to care about that.

“My, uh. Special civilian friend and accidental joker?”

“Well put, sir.”

“Says he told one of the guys his flatmate had locked himself out and so, regrettably, he suddenly had to leave.”

“That’s what I know, too, then.”

“All there is to know.”

“Yes, sir.”

Eddie didn’t meet his eyes, and all Tim wanted was for him to stop looking so... human, and just be the superhero nutcase he knew. “You ever gonna stop sir-ing me?”

“Don’t think so, sir. Not in this lifetime.” Tim swallowed. “I, uh. I’ll go get drunk now.”

“You go ahead, then,” Eddie was still looking down on the street, distracted.

“Don’t throw yourself off, sir.”

Eddie scoffed in response, demonstratively turning his back. “Nah, Corporal. What am I, a fag?”

Tim retreated beyond the door, and just managed to evade Mickey’s (Nine-Finger-Mick) attempt to include him in a Kylie Minogue number. He grabbed a half-full bottle of Jack off the sideboard, and flung himself into an armchair, occasionally glancing at the door to the balcony. Eddie did come out, eventually, with a wide grin and the usual dramatic spring in his step, making Tim wonder if the whole boyfriend thing hadn’t been a weird pipe dream. But through the whiskey, he still tasted cigarette smoke, and his back still ached from sitting on the floor, and he wanted nothing more than to walk out into the darkness and run until muscle ache and burning lungs was all he felt, then collapse exhausted into his familiar bed next to.... and when the hell had Raylan even become part of what meant home, he was just staying temporarily and he was going back to his ex-wife at some point, fuck’s sake, they were having a kid.

Fuck him, and fuck Eddie, Tim thought, too drunk to be honestly angry. Swaggering bastards both. Always pulling him into their bullshit. Always getting away with it.

Like Al said. Every man ends up with his mother. Too bad his mother, for all intents and purposes, was Eddie fucking Blake.

 

Tim’s hangover lasted for two days and the entire flight back to Lexington.

“My god,” he said tonelessly, closing the door behind him, eyes sweeping over the familiar living room, lights off but for the softly muttering television. A pair of cowboy boots was hanging off the edge of the couch. “Can’t believe the house is still standing.”

Raylan’s head appeared over the back of the couch, face hidden in the shadow, as the light from the TV was behind him.

“You actually look like you’ve drunk more than me,” he observed, sounding impressed.

Tim saluted, swaying slightly as he fumbled with his boots one-handed, holding on to the wall for balance.

“Welcome home, Tim, how was your trip?” Raylan was probably grinning insufferably, he could hear it.

“Tell you what,” Tim said, stifling a yawn. He was too tired to play ball. “You make it to the bed before I’m asleep, we can fuck?”

“You’ll be dreamin’ before I can get my pants off.”

“Dreamin’ of it already,” Tim dropped his boots where they fell, and picked up his bag with a groan. Raylan loped over to his side and took it off him, the sound of boot heels driving nails into the coffin of Tim’s headache.

“I’ll be cashing that check in the mornin’. You’re dead on your feet, and I ain’t no necrophile.”

“I wanna.” Tim nudged him with his shoulder, on the way to the stairs. Hell, he was already pouting like an idiot, might as well lean on Raylan a little. Thousands of miles away from anybody who mattered, Raylan was allowed to put an arm around his waist. Just helping him up the stairs, anyway.

For all his talking big, he didn’t feel up to anything fun. It was disorienting, in a dizzying way, to be this close to Raylan, only four hours after hugging Al goodbye. Weird, like seeing Eddie and that... college fag, in plain view of his friends. He felt himself drifting off the moment he hit the bed, eyes closing as Raylan’s hands divested him from his jeans. The touch was gone for longer than Tim anticipated, and he cracked an eye open to see.

“Throw them with the laundry,” he said, yawning. “And get those boots off in my house.”

“Thought you liked ‘em.”

Tim smiled a little, and curled up into his accustomed sleeping position, both actions equally involuntary. He cherished falling asleep easily, it happened rarely enough.

“Tomorrow,” he mumbled. “Promise.”

“Yes, Tim, I promise to suck your dick tomorrow. Go to sleep.” Raylan’s voice washed over him, that inexplicably sultry, ever so slightly amused Southern drawl.

“I promise, not you,” Tim protested half-heartedly. Between sleep and sex, sleep was definitely winning. “First thing t’morrow...”

He felt Raylan’s breath on his cheek, and when the kiss he expected didn’t come, Tim reached out for him blindly, eyes still closed, and did it himself, lips brushing Raylan’s stubbly cheek instead of his lips. Some sniper you are, Gutterson, he said to himself, half asleep already.

“Night.”

He went out like a light, so fast he barely heard Raylan’s response, if there even was one. And when he woke the next morning, he didn’t wonder for a moment where he was, and who with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
